PHYSIOLOGY. 437 



2627. The gastric digestion has reduced the food to 

 the state of a vegetable ; but this does not yet suffice 

 for it to become a nutritive matter, namely, a new organ- 

 ism. As the primary organism originates, so also must 

 the body originate in the process of nutrition, and thus 

 from the element of the Organic. Now, this primitive 

 matter or element is the mucus, the " infusorium." There 

 is still therefore a process necessary to redissolve the 

 vegetable and convert it into protoplasrna or primary 

 mucus. 



2628. This, however, occurs only through the process 

 of putrefaction being wrought in the food. This process 

 is not simple solution, but decomposition, or separation 

 of the constituent parts, The acid vegetable parts, 

 which had been active through the process of fermen- 

 tation, must be therefore decomposed, and in such wise, 

 indeed, that what is mucous shall be separated from 

 them. 



2629. This separation or analysis takes place by 

 means of the Bile, which combines with the acid of the 

 chyme. 



2630. The biliary digestion is an alkalizing or sapo- 

 naceous process. Through it the chyme becomes sepa- 

 rated into nutritive juice or chyle, and into excrement. 



2631. The excrement is what is vegetable, or the pro- 

 duct of fermentation combined with the bile. The chyle 

 is what is infusorial, or the product of decomposition. 

 Nutrition therefore begins anew. Its process is a "gene- 

 ratio origin aria." 



2632. In digestion the processes of both organic 

 kingdoms, namely, the fermentative and putrefactive, 

 are repeated. 



Absorption. 



In the intestine, not merely lung and vascular system, 

 have been represented, but also the integument or organ 

 of absorption. 



2633. After the animal food has been reduced to the 

 vegetable, and this again to the infusorial state, it can 



